﻿The title of this blog is dedicated to those world views which mistake necessary for sufficient
conditions, view reasoning as reducible to physics, and substitute reality with imagination. A subtitle of
this blog could be “Reality Deficit,” since it endeavours to deal with world views, statements and
definitions of existence which are inconsistent or deficient in reality. Invest or spend this reality
cheque as you see fit, and please don’t hesitate to inform me if it ever bounces.

Welcome

I attack worldviews that are inconsistent. I do not attack people. Please contribute. I welcome constructive and negative criticism, however personal attacks and character assassinations do not a logical argument make.

ID relevant mathematics

Politics

Galileo Galilei

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same god who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

Albert Einstein

The scientist's religious feeling takes the form of
rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.
(The World As I See It, p.9)

Robert Wright

Its amazing that a process as amoral and crassly pragmatic as natural selection could design [!] a mental organ that makes us feel as if we’re in touch with higher truths. Truly a shameless ploy.

Sir Francis Bacon, "Novum Organum"

“Lastly, there are others who appear anxious lest there should be something discovered in the investigation of nature to overthrow, or at least shake religion, particularly among the unlearned. The two last apprehensions appear to resemble animal instinct, as if men were diffident, in the bottom of their minds, and secret meditations, of the strength of religion, and the empire of faith over the senses; and therefore feared that some danger awaited them from an inquiry into nature. But any one who properly considers the subject, will find natural philosophy to be, after the word of God, the surest remedy against superstition, and the most approved support of faith. She [i.e., natural philosophy=science] is therefore rightly bestowed upon religion as a most faithful attendant, for the one exhibits the will and the other the power of God.”

J. B. S. Haldane

But if death will probably be the end of me as a finite individual mind, that does not mean that it will be the end of me altogether. It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter.
For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have a no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does
not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.
In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter. But as regards my own very finite and imperfect mind, I can see, by studying the effects on it of drugs, alcohol, disease, and so on, that. its limitations are largely at least due to my body.”
“When I Am Dead”, Possible Worlds: And Other Essays

Max Planck

﻿“All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this minute solar system of the atom together . . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind.”
(during his Nobel acceptance speech)

Louis Pasteur

The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator.
“Louis Pasteur—Founder of Modern Medicine”

C. S. Lewis

﻿If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else's. But if their thoughts - i.e., of Materialism and Astronomy - are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be
able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It's like expecting that the accidental
shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.

Cyril Burt (British neurologist)

﻿A comparison of the specific micro-neural situations in which consciousness does and does not arise suggests that the brain functions not as a generator of consciousness, but rather as a two-way transmitter and detector, i.e., although its activity is apparently a necessary condition, it cannot be a sufficient condition of conscious experience.

G. K. Chesterton

﻿. . . The Darwinians have this mark of fighters for a lost cause, that they are perpetually appealing to sentiment and to authority. Put your bat or your rhinoceros simply and innocently as a child might put them, before the Darwinian, and he will answer by an appeal to authority. He will probably answer with the names of various German professors; he will not answer with any ordinary English words, explaining the point at issue. God condescended to argue with Job, but the last Darwinian will not condescend to argue with you. He will inform you of your ignorance; he will not enlighten your ignorance.
And I will add this point of merely personal experience of humanity: when men have a real explanation they explain it, eagerly and copiously and in common speech, as Huxley freely gave it when he thought he had it. When they have no explanation to offer, they give short dignified replies, disdainful of the ignorance of the multitude.
(published in 1920)

Robert Jastrow

﻿A sound explanation may exist for the explosive birth of our Universe; but if it does, science cannot find out what the explanation is. The scientist’s pursuit of the past ends in the moment of creation. This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: In the beginning God created heaven and earth… At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.

Monday, February 11, 2008

NFL Theorems (Part III) ... So, What's the Point?

﻿Now, apply all that to an evolutionary optimization program operating on a chemical information processing system [within life -- as explained and published by Hubert Yockey] searching a space within a quantum computer system [of our universe -- as hypothesized by Seth Lloyd].

Here [link: http://www.aics-research.com/research/notes.html] also, are some published notes [from IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON NEURAL NETWORKS, VOL. 5, NO. 1, JANUARY, 1994. pp. 130-148.] explaining how computational simulations of evolution are basically representations of biological evolution. In fact, the author states that “Genetic algorithms are basically a proper simulation of Darwinian evolution. A population of trials is mutated and the best N are retained at each generation,” and, “Darwinian evolution, as a process, is an optimization algorithm. It is not a predictive theory, nor is it a tautology ([5] p. 519, [6] p. 112), as has often been claimed (e.g., [7],[8]). As in most optimization processes, the point(s) of solution wait to be discovered by trial-and-error search.”

(As an aside, which is interesting but not necessary to our discussion:

When discussing philosophical issues, the author states: “ Most troubling has been the elucidation of purpose. In distinct contrast to engineering, where purpose within a design is taken for granted -- and where the author of a design may perhaps still be available for questioning as to his reasons and motivations for specific details -- no such recourse is possible in naturally evolved systems. Indeed, the degree to which to even recognize the nature and extent of purpose within naturally evolved biota has proven to be one of biology's longest and most fundamental internal debates. Haldane once quipped, "Teleology [the study of purpose] is like a mistress to a biologist; he cannot live without her but he's unwilling to be seen with her in public" ([50] p. 392).

But purpose clearly exists in the designs produced by evolution and the reintroduction of purpose into the biological discussion has been championed by biologists such as Pittendridge, Lorenz and Mayr. Pittendridge [52] renamed and redefined the study of purpose in evolved structures to be teleonomy in order to draw as sharp a distinction between it and the mysticism of an older teleology as currently now exists between astronomy and astrology ([49] p. 29).”

... and ...

“When the philosophical perspective is constrained to the clear chain of causation resident in P, "...the designs developed by evolution are so similar in principal to those that would be reached by a conscious designer, ...it seems reasonable to suggest as a general approach to biological problems that the investigator should ask himself what are the essential functions involved and how might a designer provide for them" ([57] p. 4).)

Now, with the understanding that computational evolutionary simulations are understood to be “proper simulations of Darwinian evolution” which operates off an actual information processing system within a larger quantum computer (as hypothesized), please provide any evidence that this biological evolution is a blind process with no problem specific information and no knowledge of optimization problem matched to search algorithm beforehand. In fact, according to what the authors of the NFL Theorems state above, you won’t be able to guarantee anything of the sort using any computational simulation (which then poses the problem as to why biochemical information processing would be any different). This seems to leave only the highly improbable, indefensible, impractical, “chance of the gaps” non-explanation that follows:

- accidental chance events somehow created a lawful program and search space with an exploitable “hill climbing” structure, accidentally generated a replicating information processor (life) and the correct search algorithm to match the exploitable search space structure, and blindly and accidentally caused the necessary problem specific, active information to generate (at a rate far exceeding random chance results by many orders of magnitude) the following features which are known to be causally related to intelligent foresight and intelligent programming/design ...

Given the NFL Theorems, COI Theorems, and understanding of CSI, biological evolution is most probably the necessary result of a teleological (end-goal, solution oriented) law, being guided by problem specific information at the foundation of our universe. IOW, evolution is the result of universal laws which have been intelligently fine tuned (programmed) by matching algorithm to problem by incorporating future knowledge of the optimization problem into the evolutionary algorithm to arrive at solutions to problems/targets (some of which are shown by convergent evolution and the other 8 phenomenon/effects listed above).

The basis for this naturalistic teleological hypothesis is scientific since ...

1. It is based on observations (data) of cause and effect for the types of systems in question (information processing systems performing evolutionary optimization, arriving at above listed effects at better than chance performance),

2. It has begun to be tested and can continue to be tested using evolutionary algorithms, evidence being provided with our knowledge of the programming and problem specific information necessary (according to NFL Theorems) for evolutionary algorithms,

3. It is even falsifiable by showing how stochastic, blind, non-teleologically generated processes can cause information processing systems to self organize, generate layers of further “evolvable” coded information, and account for the problem specific information shown to be necessary by the NFL Theorems.

In fact, I don’t see how anyone could get away with not realizing that a naturalistic teleological hypothesis as the cause of life and it’s subsequent evolution is the best scientific explanation, consisting of greatest explanatory power and scope and based on observation of the types of systems in question.

Do you have any better competing hypothesis? If so, please lay it out. Merely critiquing the teleological hypothesis -- that evolution is the necessary cause of a goal oriented procedure which is necessarily shaped by intelligence -- doesn’t automatically make your position (whatever it may be) the correct position.

Again, if you wish to end this discussion, and prove ID Theory wrong and your side (whatever that may be) as right, merely show how a random set of laws will generate an information processing system, problem specific information (thus an evolutionary algorithm), and finally convergent examples of CSI. Based on my understanding and explanation of NFL Theorems and recently developed Conservation of Information Theorems that random generation of information processing systems and evolutionary algorithms is to information theory what perpetual motion free energy machines are to physics and are thus so highly improbable that they are for all practical purposes impossible. Merely show me some data (observation) that a random set of laws will produce the above mentioned set of effects. Or at least show me the theory underpinning such a hypothesis. Data Trumps ... every time. Intelligent Design Theory has played it’s first card ... now it’s the alternative hypothesis’ turn.

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﻿If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just
as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know
it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

Albert Einstein

﻿The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.

About Me

I am a Christian and I believe that the universe and life was designed on purpose, with a purpose, and for a purpose. I believe that objective truth and reality do exist and can be discovered through reasoning. Regarding evolution, natural selection and evolution obviously occur, however the use of natural selection to produce increase of complex and specified information is not possible absent the existence of previous highly improbable and specified information not defined by physical properties of material used. I could be seen as a theistic evolutionist who also believes that the foundational tenets of Intelligent Design Theory are both scientific and correct.
I describe myself as a realist and I also enjoy cooking and snowboarding.